Finding a gapin the Blue Wall was going to be nearly impossible in 2016 no matter who the party nominated. As the primary process descends into the political equivalent of a toxic waste spill, that goal has receded from view. We have been Trumped. Merely keeping the party intact will be a noteworthy accomplishment.

Even the greatest dynasties in pro sports occasionally go through a ‘rebuilding’ phase. Cycles of retirement, injuries, or poor draft choices can lead to a slump. Sometimes the only way to recover is to trade away a few key players and plan to endure several difficult years on the way back to the top.

Republicans are facing just such a rebuilding phase. With no shot at national relevance in the immediate future it would make sense to invest energy in a long term plan.

It isn’t terribly difficult to conjure up the profile of the next Republican President. Our problem is that the party, as currently composed, is incapable of cultivating and eventually nominating such a figure. In order to set down a marker, let’s describe the likely characteristics of that winning candidate.

Former Governor or business figure or both

Of the sixteen current candidates for the nomination, eleven of them have either been a Governor or have never served in office. That’s not an accident.

Under current conditions, deep ties to the party are a virtual disqualification for national office. Almost anyone who has experienced sustained success in the existing party infrastructure would fail to meet the requirements for national political appeal.

If our next GOP President has served in a public office, he will likely have been a Governor. Of all the major offices, Governor demands the least in terms of party involvement and offers the most individual independence. If she isn’t a former Governor she will probably be a business executive of some kind.

From a Northern state

Republican politics in the solidly red states of the South and Mountain West virtually guarantee a dead weight of nationally unpopular positions. Our next Republican President will have mastered the art of being a Republican in an urban, northern environment.

Nominally pro-life

It is inconceivable that the GOP could produce a truly pro-choice nominee at any point in the near future. Our next successful nominee will more or less successfully label himself “pro-life” while keeping his distance from the real pro-life agenda – just like Ronald Reagan*. No one is going to win a national election while embracing the creepy fetishists who parade under eight-foot posters of aborted fetuses. Maintaining a safe distance from anti-abortion enthusiasts while maintaining a veneer of inoffensive pro-lifeishness will be an essential key to success. It will also be the most challenging element of the nominating process.

Disinterested in social conservatism

Our next Republican President will have no interest in homosexuality, school prayer, or any other component of the campaign to legislate white, Protestant Christianity. She will probably have nice things to say about church and God and family, and angels and so on. Meanwhile, religious priorities will appear nowhere on her policy agenda.

Willing to acknowledge the Four Inescapable Realities

Failure to acknowledge these four truths means being as categorically, empirically wrong as it’s possible to be in the otherwise mushy, gray realm of politics:

1) Climate change is real and it is caused primarily by human activity.

2) Human beings evolved from simpler life forms, and the same evolutionary process shapes all living systems.

3) Abortion is a complex issue because it involves two legitimate liberty interests in conflict with one another.

4) Race still skews economic outcomes in the United States.

The next Republican President will openly embrace all of these four inescapable realities.

More concerned about regulation than taxes

Supply side economics is an abject failure. Many wealthy donors like it because it cuts their taxes. Far right conservatives like it because it weakens government. Anyone who actually cares about so-called ‘fiscal conservatism’ has to acknowledge that it has been a train wreck and move on.

Modest variations in the tax rate have no impact on growth. A tax rate, as long as it is stable, predictable, and below a certain confiscatory maximum, is just another cost of doing business. Jiggling it up or down has no effect on anything other than government revenue.

On the other hand, our regulatory and bureaucratic climate has a significant impact on growth. Our next Republican President will care less about tax rates than about tax transparency and cost-effective regulation.

Not frightened by brown people

Our next Republican President will be capable of being surrounded by a black or Hispanic audience without breaking into flop-sweats. Until we nominate a guy who can win 40% of the Hispanic vote and 15-20% of African-Americans, no Republican will enter the White House grounds except as a guest (or perhaps by gliding onto the lawn in an ultralight).

She will campaign intelligently on the South side of Chicago, in Detroit, and in Trenton. She will speak at every major national assembly of the Urban League, the NAACP, and La Raza without condescension or hostility. By doing so, she will break the Blue Wall and win at least two of these five states: Illinois, Connecticut, New Jersey, Michigan or Pennsylvania.

Republicans already have major figures that possess these qualities. GOP Governors in Massachusetts and Illinois match this wish list virtually line by line. However, we probably won’t be able to get someone with this combination of qualities on a Presidential ballot until the Republican Party is capable of producing a lot more of them. One Bruce Rauner is not enough.

Governor Rauner and Governor Baker are rare outliers who emerged in spite of considerable intra-party resistance. Neither of them would stand a shadow of a chance of winning a GOP Presidential nomination under current conditions.

Once we understand the profile of a winning character the next step is to figure out how the party can cultivate them. That’s going to be the hard part.

*President Reagan understood how to recruit pro-life activists without being owned by them. As Governor of California he signed into law the nation’s most liberal pro-choice legislation. Never once did he make a personal appearance at the annual pro-life rally protesting Roe v. Wade. He addressed the rallies by phone, even when they were happening just down the street from the White House. On social issues, especially abortion, Reagan said all the right things while never allowing those issues to intrude on his legislative agenda.

And as a side-note for those who don’t remember, Saint Ronny also caught holy hell from his fellow Republicans for negotiating a landmark treaty with America’s greatest enemy. Just sayin…

#####

About the Author: Chris Ladd is a Texan who is now living in the Chicago area. He is the founder of Building a Better GOP and has served for several years as a Republican Precinct Committeeman in DuPage County, IL, and was active in state and local Republican campaigns in Texas for many years. He currently has a new book out called The Politics of Crazy: How America Lost Its Mind and What We Can Do About It.

On Thursday, August 20th, 2015 at 9:00pm and at 11:00pm Eastern-Standard Time, CNN TV will debut “EVOCATEUR: THE MORTON DOWNEY JR. MOVIE.” “EVOCATEUR” is produced and directed by Daniel A. Miller, Seth Kramer, and Jeremy Newberger of Ironbound Films. “EVOCATEUR” first premiered at The TriBeCa Film Festival in 2012 with it’s running time being 1 hr. and 30 minutes in length. The film was rated R and distributed by Magnolia Pictures.

The film tells the story of now deceased television talk show host named Morton Downey Jr. The son of successful entertainers named Barbara Bennett and Morton Downey, Morton Downey Jr. From 1987 to 1989 redefined the role of talk show hosts and television in the United States. Born in Los Angeles, California on December 9th, 1932, Downey Jr. Had four wives( Lori Krebs, Kim Cotten, Joan Tyrrell and Helen Downey). The last one, named Lori Krebs, was a dancer whom Downey met while at the height of his fame on “The Morton Downey Jr. Show” and while still married to his third wife named Kim. Being much younger than Downey Jr., his relationship with Lori Krebs, like his talk show, was at the same time both tawdry and attention grabbing.

Diagnosed with lung cancer in 1996, Downey’s investigatory lung surgery was televised, once again making Downey a trend setter. Having lost a lung to cancer, Downey Jr., who once boasted that he smoked four packs of cigarettes per day, became an anti-smoking advocate until the time of his death on March 12, 2001.

The movie is a blend of black and white film footage, animation, narration and live color footage especially from Morton Downey Jr.’s program. At first unsettling, adding an aura of dream-like non-reality to this story of Downey Jr.’s meteoric rise to stardom as well as his fall from grace, the footage of old black and white movies and television shows as well as animation, narration and live color footage blend well together to create this truly American saga and does recreate a realistic depiction of Downey’s life and career.

Interviews with Gloria Allred, Allen Dershowitz, Curtis Silwa, Richard Bey, Sally Jesse Raphael, Steven Pagones, Pat Buchanan, Stanley Crouch and others also helps to tell this tale of American success and self-destructiveness. Also featured in “EVOCATEUR” is a detailed discussion of both The Tawana Brawley Rape as well as Downey Jr.’s own assertion that he had been brutally attacked by skin heads in a San Francisco Airport bathroom in April of 1989. Unlike Tawana Brawley, however, Downey Jr. did not recant his claims of attack and passed two police administered polygraph tests proving that Morton Downey Jr. Had been telling the truth. Like Tawana Brawley, however, Downey Jr. was disgraced and his TV show, which had successfully competed with people such as Phil Donahue, Sally Jesse Raphael and David Letterman was cancelled in July of 1989. Also featured in “EVOCATEUR” are Al Sharpton, Tawana Brawley, Roy Innis, Larry King, Chris Elliott, Meredith Vierra, Mayor Ed Koch, Michelle Bachman, Herman Caine, Ron Paul and Glen Beck.

While “EVOCATEUR” creates a portrait of Morton Downey Jr. as a passionate man who frequently did not say and do that which was politically correct, the film does not discuss Downey Jr.’s several attempts throughout the nineties to jump start his failing career as a talk show host. Although his first love, which was his career as a Muscician and Poet is addressed, it was as a “trash” talk show host that Morton Downey Jr. achieved his greatest success paving the way for people such as Howard Stern, Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Maury Povitch, Geraldo Rivera and Jerry Springer. Morton Downey Jr. also remains as the harbinger of today’s multiplicity of reality shows which strive for both reality and sensationalism in their quest for the greatest shock value and television ratings.

On a scale of from one to ten, I rate “EVOCATEUR” a 9.0.

#####

About the Author: Cleo Brown is the movie reviewer for HipHopRepublican.com. She lives in Manhattan and has a Master’s Degree in Contemporary African-American History from The University of California at Davis and has done work on a Ph.D. in education at The University of San Francisco. She has published several poetry books and is featured in Who’s Who in Poetry.

Republicans have a problem in a candidate who will not win the nomination–Donald Trump. Democrats have a problem in a candidate widely expected to win their nomination–Hillary Clinton. This reality worries Democrats, because Clinton continues to run an embarrassingly opaque and inept campaign. Ron Fournier in National Journal writes a brutal plea to Clinton, laying the embarrassing elements of her bumbling campaign at her feet.

“We can’t make it any plainer,” Fournier writes. “You’re the problem, Hillary.”

Keilar asks, “We see in our recent poll that nearly six in 10 Americans say they don’t believe that you’re honest and trustworthy. Do you understand why they feel that way?”

Clinton bristles and blames Republicans for this “misperception.”

“I think when you are subjected to the kind of constant barrage of attacks that are largely fomented by and coming from the Right…”

Keilar interrupts, pushing further.

“Do you bear any responsibility for that,” Keilar asks. At this, Clinton tries to pivot and talk about her election history and her current commitment to fight for “everyday people” (as opposed to us every other day people), but Keilar heroically refuses to give up.

“Trusting someone to fight for them,” she says, “and trusting someone, these are two different things. Do you see any role that you’ve had in the sentiment that we’ve seen, where people are questioning whether you’re trustworthy?”

Clinton denies her contribution to her own negative ratings three times before the cock crows. This time, blaming the media.

“I can only tell you, Brianna, that this has been a theme that has been used against me and my husband for many, many years…I mean, people write books filled with unsubstantiated attacks against us…But of course, it’s your job to cover it. So of course that’s going to raise questions in people’s minds.”

Keilar does a good job at pushing Clinton on the issue of trust, making the interview more difficult for Clinton supporters, like Fournier, to stomach. For me, a conservative, Clinton’s answers point to a destructive liberal tendency–an inability or unwillingness to self-critique, and to, instead, blame structures for personal failings or poor outcomes. To Fournier’s credit, he recognizes this tendency as it pertains to Mrs. Clinton.

“You’ve made some poor choices,” he writes, “and, rather than fix them, you blamed the GOP and the media. You wouldn’t let Chelsea say the dog ate her homework, so why do you think this is a good idea?”

In truth, this strategy of blaming structures rather than individuals characterizes the liberal mindset. Blacks, according to liberals, face longer prison sentences and troubles with law enforcement not because of personal decisions to commit crimes, but because of a structural deficiency with the American legal system. Women make lower wages than men, not because they tend to enter the workforce later than men and interrupt their work life to meet other demands, but because, says the liberal, a sexist system discriminates against women. Poverty cannot be explained by bad personal choices; like failure to graduate high school, parenting children out of wedlock or drug or alcohol dependence; but rather, poverty emanates from the structural deficiencies of our capitalist economic system.

On issue after issue, liberals tell their constituents that “the dog ate their homework.” After a while of these excuses, the student fails the class. This terrifies the left about Clinton, and it is my hope that their fears are actualized.

#####

About the Author: Joseph Hunter is a conservative writer from Chicago who blogs at Black and Red. You can follow him on twitter @blkandred.

And it came on the heels of President Obama’s address to the US Conference of Mayors last month, in which he praised the city leaders for their pragmatism — meaning they’re the only political class interested in enacting the lame-duck president’s second-term agenda, including minimum-wage increases and paid leave.

Yet as silly as it sounds for a floundering New York mayor and a US president to fashion themselves as candidates for “America’s mayor,” Republicans should pay close attention: It’s a much-needed reminder to the GOP that its political future is bleak if it continues to write off urban areas as political losers.

Indeed, current drama over Uber and the “sharing economy” perfectly illustrates the GOP’s opportunity….

Sean Jacobs is the co-founder of New Guinea Commerce – a website committed to governance, growth and next generation leadership in the Indo-Pacific.

For some time now I’ve thought about what the great Benjamin Franklin would say if he took a walk (or paddle) through the Pacific Islands.

Franklin, who helped found the United States, is one of the most well-known figures in history for contributions to writing, publishing, diplomacy, innovation and politics.

The most accomplished American of his generation, and arguably of all time, he has provided generations with universal advice on ‘the way to wealth’ through simple values like thrift, industry and frugality. He delivered this advice at a time when America, just like today’s Pacific Islands, was undergoing great economic change.

‘We can easily imagine having a beer with him after work,’ writes his acclaimed biographer Walter Isaacson, ‘showing him how to use the latest digital device, sharing the business plan for a new venture, and discussing the most recent political scandals or policy ideas.’ So, if Franklin visited the region’s market places, villages, resource projects, campuses, businesses and supermarkets, what thoughts would he deliver to Pacific Islanders about wealth and life?

First, I feel his observations would not be loaded with GDP figures or economic charts and tables. Indeed, contrasting most experts, writing report after report about the region’s un-shiftable poverty, he would likely talk about the values – the attitudes, priorities and ation leadership in the Indo-Pacific.behaviours – that typically build wealth and fulfilment among people, regardless of where they are and what circumstances they find themselves in.

He would encourage self-agency amid the region’s messy state of governance and public affairs – corruption, power cuts, crumbling roads, poorly stocked hospitals and not enough police.

To those Pacific Islanders awaiting government solutions he would urge focus on what they could do for themselves, to paraphrase his fellow patriot, rather than what their governments could do for them. ‘We are taxed twice as much by our idleness,’ he wrote in The Way To Wealth, ‘three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly, and from these taxes the commissioners cannot erase or deliver us by allowing an abatement.’

He would applaud the commerce taking place in the region’s market places – mostly led by women facing daily violence and working impeccably hard – and the commitment to exchanging, bartering and trading.

In building on his applause he would encourage many of the region’s jobless young men sitting idle on street corners, which number in the millions, to ‘waste neither time nor money.’ He would encourage any opportunity they could get, albeit however slim, to stimulate their minds and work on themselves.

At seeing those who had found work, or the region’s villagers catching fish, he would smile because ‘at the working man’s house poverty looks in but dares not enter.’

He would see that, just by looking at the region’s ports or supermarkets, consumption was increasing. This is strange, he might think, given that per capita income over the past two decades has barely moved in places like Papua New Guinea or the Solomon Islands.

To any Pacific Islander he would urge frugality on spending, regardless of the amount. ‘Wonderfully small trifling expenses,’ he would remind them, ‘mount up to large sums.’

Saving more than you spend, in fact, formed the simple basis to his timeless advice. Not saving, Franklin warned, led to a life of constant wants. ‘A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, keeps his nose all his life to the grindstone.’

And more goods, he would warn, do not necessarily bring more satisfaction. ‘Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of mind,’ he said, ‘than on outward circumstances.’

Franklin would not be impressed with everything he saw. He would accept the value of the strange devices in people’s hands but not be overly-enthused by what he saw on some screens (PNG, for example, tops global rankings for internet pornography searches).

He would think the spending habits on demerit items like betelnut, processed food and alcohol are not good for health. The fact that Nauru, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Niue, Samoa, Palau and Kiribati, are among the top ten most obese nations on earth would betray their testaments to industry and frugality.

Franklin would eventually depart from the Pacific by seeing that, just like the hardscrabble 1700s United States, life was incredibly tough for the overwhelming major of normal, everyday people. But he would make the same final point to Pacific Islanders as he would to his fellow Americans – it’s up to people to unlock their own destinies and create their own fulfilment.

Any observations and outside assistance, he understood, would only go so far. ‘We may give advice,’ he reflected, ‘but we cannot give conduct.’ Sound advice, it seems, not just for the Pacific Islands but for their larger neighbours seeking ways to help.

####

About the Author: Sean Jacobs currently works as a Liaison Specialist for Wilson Security in Papua New Guinea. Immediately prior he served as a policy adviser to the Queensland Minister for Education, Training and Employment. While at PM&C he also served on the G20 Taskforce leading aspects of security planning for Brisbane’s G20. Sean holds a BA (International Relations) from Griffith University and a Postgraduate Certificate in Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism from Macquarie University. He also holds qualifications from the Australian National Security College, the Australian Institute of Management and the University of New England.

In a largely improvised speech brimming with Trumpitude, The Donald announced in June his official entry into the race for the GOP Presidential nomination. This time around, instead of just lingering around the fringes throwing garbage he might mount a serious run.

Trump’s chances of winning the nomination are as near to zero as it’s possible to get, but he doesn’t have to win to change this race. A more or less deliberate Trump campaign for the nomination could change the outcome of this race by introducing these three factors:

Candor – Yes, you read that right. To be clear, barely one out of every seven or eight statements Trump makes could fall within any reasonable definition of truthfulness. Mostly he’s just playing the part of the drunk uncle at the Thanksgiving table. When I use the term candor in reference to Trump I’m highlighting two things: 1) the manner in which he communicates his falsehoods, and 2) the disruptive character of his rare truthful statements.

Trump’s bluster is important because he has abandoned all the subtleties and evasions that have accompanied Republican appeals to the hard-right fringe over the past two decades. He’s not afraid to go full-racist. This creates a problem for the rest of the field. Weeks have passed since Trump’s incendiary, racist speech and the other Republican contenders have barely laid a glove on him. How can they? All they can do is fault his tone.

No one in this field can afford to come out and forcefully state that his comments on immigrants are wrong without opening up a devastating vulnerability to their right. Trump may be irresponsible and unelectable, but the other Republican contenders can’t confront his most offensive statements directly. That’s why he poses such a dangerous threat to the Republican brand.

To stem the damage he’s unleashed, someone is going to have to make a wider break with the party’s racist fringe. No one has yet showed the courage to make that move, because they know it would cost them the nomination. None of these candidates is willing to sacrifice their ambitions to rescue the GOP from itself.

When Trump veers into the world of facts he is even more unsettling. Inside the GOP at this moment, the only officially tolerated narratives are based on delusions. From science denial to supply-side economics to Benghazi, on almost every issue of consequence the party is presently unwilling to make even the minutest concessions to reality.

Into this bubble of denial wanders a reckless monster with more money than Mitt Romney. While most of Trump’s statements fit the usual Fox News pattern of fact-starved, bigoted blather, he occasionally lays a foul smelling nugget of verifiable reality on the family table. Like rhetorical croutons in Trump’s word-salad, these inconvenient truths are disruptive and difficult for the other candidates to swallow.

For example, in his announcement speech he mentioned the disastrous cost of the Iraq War in specifics. When the Club for Growth called for him to be banned from the Republican debates, he claimed they’d done it because he refused their request to donate $1m to the group. Then he produced a private letter from the organization that seems to support his claim. These are things that serious Republican political figures simply would not do.

As a random wealthy weirdo beholden to no one, Trump can say things no one else can. He is the Republican Party’s Id unshackled from any constraints.

Stretching the definition of “credibility” – Having Trump on a debate stage being treated like a Real Candidate™ transforms the standard for credibility in this race. Trump makes Ben Carson look like a levelheaded, qualified leadership figure. The biggest loser if Trump participates in the debates will be Jeb! and the biggest winner will be Ted Cruz.

Nothing recommends Jeb! to Republican voters more than his fairly convincing claim to be the only adult in the race. With Trump hogging the media spotlight, juvenile outbursts from characters like Santorum, Carson, Huckabee or Cruz are less likely to blow up into major stories.

The simple physics of the Overton Window means that Trump’s presence makes everyone else look relatively rational. Placed on a spectrum of craziness with Trump, Cruz and Bush suddenly sit pretty close together near the political center.

And under current standards Trump will have treated as though he were a Real Candidate™. No one in this field registers much more popularity or support than Donald Trump. Heck, outside the hardened party base few of these guys have higher favorability ratings than lung cancer. Trump has enough money and enough of a hardened goofball following to never dip below sixth or seventh in this race no matter what he or anyone else does.

An independent campaign – Here’s where it gets interesting. Trump has absolutely no shot at the GOP nomination. Every major constituency, every voting bloc, every organizational entity in the party will do anything necessary to stop him from winning. He is a major disruption, but not a candidate.

So what if he doesn’t quit when the GOP selects someone else?

It may seem counter-intuitive, but this may be the Republicans’ only shot at winning the White House in 2016. The logic of the Blue Wall boils down to this: thanks to demographic realities there is nothing that Republicans can do to win the White House. That’s not to say Republicans can’t win. Accidents, mishaps, and acts of God can occur. The Blue Wall logic says that none of the things Republicans are willing to do to win are enough to win. Winning will require some force majeure.

Since we can’t win by just nominating a solid candidate and running a great campaign, Republicans need some unforeseeable disruption, some strange event large enough to scramble the electoral math. Maybe there will be a war or a natural disaster. Or the Democrats’ will self-immolate by nominating the socialist Senator from Baja Canada. Or, someone like Trump might deliver what we need.

Granted, it would be reasonable to assume that an independent campaign by Trump will peel away more potential Republican voters than Democrats, but it’s hard to be certain. The man’s appeal is…let’s just say, eccentric. If he ran as an independent and he managed to get on the ballot in some of the larger states he might create enough static to make 2016 interesting.

Though possible, that outcome is unlikely. It’s far more likely that Trump will just shower the GOP primaries in bullshit, undermining whatever minimal credibility the winner hoped to gain. At some point in the process he’ll probably just wander away, distracted by a waiter or limo driver who needs a good reprimand. He’ll ruin the 2016 nominating campaign then move on to even bigger and better bankruptcies and trophy wives.

When the value of your brand dips below a certain critical mass, you start to invite speculation from junk dealers. The GOP nomination is about to get the Trump name plastered all over it in gold capital letters, then left to rot like some godforsaken Atlantic City hotel. And there’s nothing we can do about it, because no one can fire the Donald.

#####

About the Author: Chris Ladd is a Texan who is now living in the Chicago area. He is the founder of Building a Better GOP and has served for several years as a Republican Precinct Committeeman in DuPage County, IL, and was active in state and local Republican campaigns in Texas for many years.

William F. Buckley, Jr. did little to attract blacks to the GOP, and the effect of this neglect shows.

William F. Buckley Jr. stares down at me from a giant poster I made to add a little conservative life to the bone white walls of my office. Beside him, in the poster, reads a quote from “The Conscience of a Conservative,” the book that he ghostwrote with L. Brent Bozell Jr. in 1960. When co-workers and visitors confront the 3 by 5 foot image; they crane their necks back, read the quote, look at Buckley’s wrinkled face and ask, “Who is that?”

“That’s Bill Buckley,” I say. “My hero.”

Intrigued that I profess to having a hero in a time when deconstruction reduces great men and women to irredeemable monsters, I’m often asked why I so revere Mr. Buckley. I always relish the opportunity to rattle off the short list of Buckley’s impressive works:

In 1955, when conservative media did not exist, Buckley started National Review magazine, a publication that still exists as one of, if not the, most influential among conservatives. Eleven years later, Buckley started “Firing Line,” the longest running public affairs television program with a single host in American history. Both endeavors codified conservative ideology and brought it into the mainstream political conversation. During this time, too, Buckley courted libertarians and fused them with traditional conservatives, hinging the union on a shared commitment to free market economics and a mutual disdain for communism. A profound and prolific author, Buckley’s polysyllabic writings intellectualized a movement largely defined by its populist appeal. In effect, Buckley made space for intellectuals within political conservatism, so that affirming conservative ideology did not affect one’s respectability.

Intellectualizing conservatism represented an important move, because it added authority to the movement and to its ideas. This became important when Buckley worked to marginalize the John Birch Society and anti-Semites, expelling them from conservatism. After this purge, one could not be a respected conservative and either hate Jews or traffic in wild communist conspiracy theories. Today, the conservative movement benefits from the many Jewish voices that Buckley’s efforts welcomed. Jennifer Rubin, Michael Medved, Charles Krauthammer and many others enrich political debate and make conservatism stronger.

Understanding that these accomplishments make up only part of Buckley’s short list of accomplishments makes it easier to believe his tongue in cheek claim that his singular lacuna was baseball. Indeed, however, there was another, much more important, blind spot in Buckley’s construction of the conservative movement. What he had done for Jews, Buckley did not for blacks.

President Harry Truman, integrating the military, cracked the door for blacks to leave the Republican Party and begin trickling left. Still, though, many blacks voted for Republicans and stood for conservative causes. When Republican presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, blacks believed that the GOP had abandoned them at a crucial moment in the civil rights struggle. Though more Democrats voted against the Civil Rights Act (117) than did Republicans (40), the Republican standard bearer joined the dissenters. This move sent a message to blacks and to enemies of civil rights.

This pivotal moment changed American politics dramatically. Whether or not Mr. Buckley, himself closely tied to Goldwater, recognized or cared about this trend remains unclear. Regardless, though, he did nothing to address it. In fact, his own tone deaf comments on segregation, South African apartheid, and the federal government’s proper role in addressing civil rights for blacks further alienated the GOP’s first constituents. Before his death in 2008, Buckley expressed regret and admitted short-sightedness on these issues. The damage to the conservative movement, though, had been done and some of the effects of Buckley’s oversight still haunt the GOP by way of some odd associations.

In 2014, news broke that Republican House majority whip, Steve Scalise addressed a white supremacist group founded by David Duke. Duke is the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan who started the European-American Unity and Rights Organization (EURO). Scalise denounced EURO and claimed that he only attended the event by accident:

“I didn’t know who all of these groups were…I had one person that was working for me. When someone called and asked me to speak, I would go.”

Last month, after Dylann Roof killed 9 black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, an investigation uncovered that he found motivation from a white supremacist organization called the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC). Earl Holt III, the council president, donated to many Republicans including 4 presidential candidates.Among the CCC’s statement of principles are vows to help the American people and government “remain European in…composition and character,” to “oppose all efforts to mix the races,” and to protect “the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people” from “the integration of the races.” In the 1990s, Senators Trent Lott and Haley Barbour addressed the CCC, as did Governor Mike Huckabee.

Had Buckley’s efforts in the formative years of the political conservative movement focused more squarely on attracting and retaining blacks, Scalise’s campaign manager may never have had ties to EURO in the first place. Neither would CCC have thought it advantageous to its cause to support Republican candidates (note: some of the candidates CCC supported are non-white). Racists would have been politically isolated, relegated to the backroom with anti-Semites and Birchers.

So where does that leave us now?

Buckley is still my hero in spite of his flaws. Besides, to lay the conservative movement’s race problems squarely at his feet would be unjust. That said, what we learn from his oversight should help us move forward with improving our relationship with blacks. Republicans should not be satisfied in our own proclamations that we are not racist when our party serves as a refuge for racists. My hero, were he able to rectify his mistakes, would focus on tone. He would promote black conservative writers and thinkers. He would align the conservative cause with black advancement. He would do all of this with the joy and brilliance and flair that he did whenever he did anything at all.

The conservative movement indeed has a lacuna. The man who helped create it can also help us rectify it.

#####

About the Author: Joseph Hunter is a conservative writer from Chicago who blogs at Black and Red. You can follow him on twitter @blkandred.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), homelessness is defined as “people who are living in a place not meant for human habitation, in emergency shelter, in transitional housing, or are existing in an institution where they temporarily reside for up to ninety days; or people who have lost their primary night-time residence, which may include a motel or a hotel.”

Similarly, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, defines homelessness as “the condition of people without a regular dwelling-people who are homeless are most often unable to acquire and maintain regular, safe, secure and adequate housing, or lack “fixed, regular and adequate night-time residence. The term ‘homeless’ may also include people whose primary night-time residence is in a homeless shelter, a warming center, a domestic violence shelter, a vehicle, cardboard boxes, a tent,” etc. The United Nations defines homelessness as “rooflessness.” This includes people “living in the streets without shelter”; and “persons with no place of usual residence…including dwellings, shelters, and institutions for the homeless or other living quarters.”

As of 2005, there were at least 100 million homeless people world-wide. There are currently, according to the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, between 2.3 and 3.5 million people experiencing homelessness in the U.S.A. And, according to a 2008 study by HUD, in January of 2007, 671, 888 people experienced homelessness. The study concluded that about 58 percent lived in shelters and transitional housing while the other 42 percent were unsheltered. In 2010, another group, AHAR (Annual Homeless Assessment Report) found that 1,593,150 individuals were homelessness, of which 85 percent were single and 75-80 percent were male.

“NOW,” a PBS station found that the states with the highest rates of homelessness as of 2009 were: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington State and Washington D.C. According to the Institute for the Study of Homelessness and Poverty, an estimated 254,000 men, women and children experienced homelessness in Los Angeles during some part of the year while, according to The Coalition For The Homeless, as of April 2015, there were approximately 59, 285 homeless individuals (including 14,132 families and 24,267 children) in New York City. Also, according to The Coalition For The Homeless, “the numbers of homeless New Yorkers sleeping each night in municipal shelters is now 72 percent higher than it was in 2005.

Keeping these statistics in mind, according to HUD and the United Nations, it costs taxpayers and the government between $35,000 and $150,000 per year to maintain one homeless person in the U.S.A. Similarly, it has been reported that in Salt Lake City, Utah, the cost for maintaining one homeless person for a single year ( although an isolated incident ) was one million dollars.

In states, however, such as Colorado, Florida, New York and Utah, where “Housing First” programs have been implemented to house and care for the homeless, these costs have been reduced significantly to, in some instances, as low as $7,000 per person per year.

Why is homelessness so expensive?

The costs of hospitalizations, including frequent use of the emergency room; use of the police to control the homeless including the incarceration of the homeless in jails and prisons; and the use of the shelter system including patronage of soup kitchens and food pantries by the homeless all adds up to, on an average, $40,000 per year per homeless person. With the cost of hospital rooms exceeding $2,000 per day and the salaries of physicians, nurses, hospital administrators, police, court officials, attorneys and social services staff growing annually, it is no wonder.

What is “Housing First”?

“Housing First” programs house the homeless first and then, using on-site supportive services, work to correct a host of problems causing the homelessness such as substance abuse, parole from jail and prison, mental illness, domestic violence, discharge from the military and loss of income, are cheaper to implement and use. Formerly, social scientist sought to cure these problems first. This delay was costly, and often, was responsible for an escalation of the problem(s) causing the homelessness.

With “Housing First” however, the immediate need is to house the homeless first, then help correct the contributing factors to homelessness. In Colorado, Florida and Utah the cost of maintaining one homeless person was reduced to $7,000 per year. In New York City, one nonprofit housing organisation was able to use a “Housing First” approach and reduced the cost of maintaining one formerly homeless person to a little over $16,000 per year. Although. $16,000 is more than double. $7,000 it is still much cheaper than $40,000 per year per homeless person.

In conclusion, while the shelter system and supporting social services ( medical services, clothing, transportation, food, recreation) are necessary for the millions of homeless people who depend upon their existence for their day to day survival, the sounder economic policy is to utilize an approach that offsets cost to the taxpayer while meeting the needs of the homeless.

#####

About the Author: Cleo Brown is the movie reviewer for HipHopRepublican.com. She lives in Manhattan and has a Master’s Degree in Contemporary African-American History from The University of California at Davis and has done work on a Ph.D. in education at The University of San Francisco. She has published several poetry books and is featured in Who’s Who in Poetry.

Joseph Hunter is a conservative writer from Chicago who blogs at Black and Red.

After months of Hamlet-like vacillation, John Ellis (Jeb) Bush decides to join the 2016 Presidential race. The leader among all of the declared and undeclared Republican presidential candidates, Bush offers something most of the candidates do not–executive experience running a state that the GOP must win in order to win the 2016 election. Still though, many Republicans remain skeptical of Mr. Bush, some flatly refusing to vote for “another Bush.” Here are 3 reasons why Republicans should keep an open mind about the Jeb Bush candidacy.

Martin O’Malley, Carly Fiorina, and Ben Carson share a common first hurdle to a successful White House bid–earning widespread name recognition. For some candidates, their relative obscurity serves them well: Senator Marco Rubio, for example, can define himself on his own terms. Martin O’Malley, on the other hand, struggles to get any attention at all. For Jeb Bush, name recognition cuts both ways: on the one hand, Bush enjoys the benefits of belonging to a respected political family that Americans feel as if they know. After all, the only Republicans to win the White House since Ronald Reagan were Bushes. Still, though,Jeb must make the case that he is his own man, worthy of the job on his own merits, not just because of his last name. That task represents an opportunity similar to Senator Rubio’s. Being from such a successful political family brings with it two more important advantages–networking and money. Leading up to his announcement, Bush has been cobbling together an enviable campaign team of big names like Danny Diaz, Heather Larrison, and Alex Lundry. Many of these people worked on Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign and worked for George W. Bush as well.Heather Larrison leads Bush’s dynamic fundraising team that has been greatly outpacing his rivals’. Mr. Rubio, also from Florida, has been struggling to build his fundraising base upon Florida donors, because Bush’s influence in the state is deeper and wider-reaching. In fact, whichever candidate performs worse in Florida’s winner take all primary will likely end his White House bid immediately thereafter. Name recognition, deep political networks and strong fundraising abilities are important aspects to running a winning campaign.

By far, the most braindead “argument” against a Jeb Bush presidential run (and in fairness, against Hillary Clinton as well) is “Not Another Bush.” This reticence to support Mr. Bush purely based on his last name indicates immaturity and irrational thinking. For those of us who have siblings, would it be fair to say that knowing one of you is the same as knowing the other? Do you think the same as your siblings on all matters? Do you think the same as your father on all matters? Most matters?Most bothersome about the “Not Another Bush” line, is that it runs contrary to America’s greatest ideal, that which sets us apart from our European kin: America values the individual more than the bloodline. And we should continue to do so. Betraying that idea betrays the notion that anyone can “make it” in America if he or she just works hard and plays by the rules.By this standard, Jeb Bush has earned his right to be taken seriously along with the other candidates because he governed Florida successfully and conservatively. At present, he appears to be an upstanding man with a good family (all families face challenges, of course). He holds his own policy positions that may vary from his brother and father, and still fall within the conservative spectrum. On these elements should he be judged, not on his family lineage.

Reason Three: Jeb Bush Falls within the GOP Mainstream

The 2016 GOP candidate will surely need the support from the broadest coalitions of the conservative movement. He or she will need to speak most of all to social conservatives, economic conservatives, and defense-minded conservatives. On the issues most important to these constituencies, Jeb Bush falls within the mainstream. Unlike George Pataki, Bush holds a consistent record opposing abortion. Unlike Mike Huckabee, Bush does not need to defend himself against allegations of reliance on federal funds during his governorship. Unlike Rand Paul, Bush speaks clearly about reinstating a forward-leaning foreign policy. Furthermore, for Bush’s conservative bona fides, he strikes a moderate tone–an important ingredient for any GOP candidate to win the general election.Without a doubt, Mr. Bush faces a list of challenges and formidable candidates in his 2016 bid. While he leads the pack in most polls, his lead wanes–most notably, in Florida. Still, though, Bush represents a serious candidate in whom Republicans can take pride. A welcome addition to the large field of candidates, Jeb Bush deserves serious consideration in his own right.

#####

About the Author: Joseph Hunter is a conservative writer from Chicago who blogs at Black and Red. You can follow him on twitter @blkandred.

Lost amid the cheering as the Supreme Court finally ends the battle over gay marriage is a strange paradox. Gay marriage is a fundamentally conservative concept. Its legal basis was established and promoted by key conservatives. It exists as a ringing endorsement of traditional institutions, an expansion and strengthening of the community and family values on which conservatism has rested for centuries.

By “conservative” of course I refer to the term in its older traditional sense, the manner explained in this earlier piece. And when I refer to the conservatives who played such key roles in this process I am thinking most notably of Ted Olson, who built the constitutional case, and Andrew Sullivan, who helped form the public case for same sex marriage.

It wasn’t so long ago that same sex marriage was a deeply controversial concept in the gay community. It wasn’t so long ago that marriage itself, as an institution, was generally thought to be under sustained attack in our culture. Andrew Sullivan’s most prominent early fight, starting in the ’80’s, had less to do with getting the wider public to accept same sex marriage than with prodding the gay community to make it a cause. Promoting marriage in the gay community was seen by many as a capitulation to repressive conservative morality. In a sense it was. It still is. Why can’t people who call themselves “conservative” recognize this and celebrate a win?

One of the most frustrating consequences of Republican paranoia is the way it has blinded us to opportunities. If the GOP could muster a shred of cool-headed sanity, practically every gay couple in America who wants to marry would be Republicans. Absent the bigotry that’s gripped the party, why wouldn’t they be?

The same goes for ambitious young immigrants, African-American families looking to seize new economic opportunities, young professional women, and on and on and on. There is nothing valuable – not one valuable thing at all – at risk of loss by extending the right to marry to homosexuals. Reflexive fear of change is leaving the party crippled and dangerous.

Between this ruling and the collapse of our quiet defense of Confederate values, maybe we can sober up. There is absolutely nothing left to gain from promoting public fear and loathing of gays. Perhaps this emerging cultural shift can force the party to rethink the Neo-Confederate alliances built up over the past few decades. Maybe we can remember who we are and start to build the optimistic, realistic agenda that the country deserves to hear from us.

#####

About the Author: Chris Ladd is a Texan who is now living in the Chicago area. He is the founder of Building a Better GOP and has served for several years as a Republican Precinct Committeeman in DuPage County, IL, and was active in state and local Republican campaigns in Texas for many years.